


Out of Order

by honorableotp



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Brio - Freeform, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-01-12 20:25:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18454007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honorableotp/pseuds/honorableotp
Summary: Beth had always liked things in a proper order. Everything in their perfect little slots, from her books and cds to her relationships and her schooling and her future. Life needed order.~A Beth-centric brio fic. Beth loses control.





	1. "Supposed To" Is Relative

Beth had always liked things in a proper order. Everything in their perfect little slots, from her books and cds to her relationships and her schooling and her future. Life needed order.

She chooses to be a kept woman; She chooses Dean. She liked him. She liked his confidence. He was cute. He played baseball and football. She likes the picture he paints of a pretty white house in a safe neighborhood and a whole slew of kids. Of marble backsplashes, trips to Cedar Point and their parent’s cabins up north (they’ll go to the Boland’s more often; theirs is in Traverse City and there will be more for the kids to do). They can get a golden retriever and take him with them when they go to the orchard in the fall for cider and donuts and the dog will growl at the goats and chickens. They might even get an in-ground pool, maybe move up a little to a town with a lake to live on. She’ll be on the PTA and he’ll sell cars. _I’ll be so successful,_ he jokes, _since Michigan roads force us to replace our cars so often._ He is predictable, reliable, and so easily controlled. He promises her a life of secured happiness.

 

Her choice, quite happily, leads to a lot of scheduling and budgeting the monthly allowance her husband gives her. She’s good at it. She likes it, likes the color coordinated sticky notes and the coded pens and the sting of paper cuts and the lists and stickers and _control_.  

 

But then her marriage, her life, and their perfect order crumble, and Dean holds the sledgehammer in one had and a bony little blonde’s A cup in his other hand.

She’s losing control, most of which she seemingly never had in the first place, and she needs to do something to fix it. Something that will give her some semblance of authority.

She decides to rob a grocery store.  

The thought scares her a little, because it’s like she’s forsaking everything she had ever stood for. Beth was a good girl. She liked being a good girl. She cleaned up her toys and came in before the street lights turned on. She waited five months before she even let her high school boyfriend get under bra, and telling her parents when she found Annie behind their shed with a lighter in her hand and a joint between her lips had been out of genuine concern for her baby sister. She waited until her sophomore year of college to even try it herself. She had been faithful to her husband despite the four year dry spell and his tea spoon sized emotional capacity. She always put everyone else’s needs before her own.

 

She does what she’s supposed to.

 

But she’s supposed to take care of her kids. That is the number one thing as a mother she is supposed to be able to do.

So she does what she has to. Once she sits down and figures it out, it’s not so different from making her calendars. She has to make sure everyone (see: Annie) knows what they’re doing and when they’re doing it. She has to make a plan and know her openings and know and prepare for every possible thing that could go wrong.

She does what she has to to keep things in order.


	2. And when true Chaos finally comes, who brings it?

Things are okay again. Or, at least, they will be soon. Beth goes out and she buys groceries and she doesn’t worry about the price like she did last week, because she has 166,000 dollars, give or take, to her name. She and Dean will figure things out and (or at least that’s what she tells herself when she briefly forgets not to think about it). She walks through her front door, balancing her paper grocery bags and doing her best not to think about it. Buddy runs up to greet her, and whimpers, which is a little weird.

 

“Hey Buddy,” She coos, closing the door behind her. “What’s wrong. You need to go potty? Need to pee-pee?” He follows along enthusiastically, but holds back as she steps towards the kitchen.

“Nah, he’s good.” The voice startles her, sends the groceries and her purse to the floor and pulls a yelp from her mouth. She hears glass hit and hopes her French yogurt is okay. “We already took him out.” It’s said in far too casual way to be from the lips of an intruder sitting on her kitchen counter with a gold plated gun pointed towards her. Beth takes in the situation as much as possible before she speaks.

“What do you want?” Beth is proud of how steady her voice is.

“Oh, relax, sweetheart!” He reassures, pushing himself up and off the island and approaching her. She keeps her eyes on him, but cant help to see his two friends move forward and lean against the island, barrels pointed towards her. “I just need you to call your lady friends over so we can all have…” He looks away briefly, and when his eyes fall to hers and his sentence resumes, his voice holds a menace she knows can’t be false. “A little talk.” She stifles her desire to take a step back and away from the man with an eagle inked into his throat and chaos laced through his eyes.

“About what?”

“Oh. About the money you stole from us.”

Beth hardly even remembers what order feels like from then on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay hiiii  
> ik this was short but its just a scene recount.  
> also i would like to say i LOVE writing Beth. My girl is so relatable in her desperate desire for control, lust for Rio, and dangerously impulsive decisions.  
> let me know what you thought!! and find me on social media! i'm most active on my twitter which is @iuciforbes


	3. Lying is The Most Fun a Girl Can Have (Without Taking Her Clothes Off)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ik we wish beth would take her clothes off but this isn't that kind of fic sorry kiddos  
> but this chapters a long one hope u enjoy

Rio is a boss of some sort; he has to have a schedule. Yet he doesn’t seem to have the common courtesy to make Beth aware of it. He shows up when he wants, sends bleeding teenagers when he wants. He starts things when he wants- ends them all the same, too.   
But working for him, and eventually working with him, makes her realize things about herself.  
Rio is an enlightenment long overdue.   
Maybe it’s a midlife crisis. Maybe Annie’s right and Dean’s right and every online quiz she takes is right.   
But so what? If it is that- if it is her spiralling and changing things that shouldn’t be changed and doing things that shouldn’t be done, so be it.   
Beth likes this. She likes making her own money. She likes having a part of her life that Dean won’t ever be able to touch. She likes taking care of her family and friends. She likes being a boss bitch. She likes have security again.  
Most of all she likes the fact that she’s the one in control. Not Dean, nor anyone else.  
At least, she thinks she is.  
Until Rio gets that frustratingly smug look on his face and she realizes that she likes him- likes the way he looks her up and down hungrily, as though she’s desirable. She likes the way he gives her the respect she earns and the way he doesn’t talk down to her or tiptoe around her feelings, as though she’s actually an equal.  
When she’s around him she doesn’t think straight- she doesn’t do what she’s supposed to. She makes impulsive, destructive decisions like she never had before. Her actions leave herself and those who she cares about in a precarious situation- a profitable one, sure, but precarious nonetheless.  
In a desperate act to secure a safety net for herself she had only set the makings of a trap.   
Beth starts to panic about it, sometimes. I can’t ever make enough calendars for Dean to figure out how to take care of those kids, she’ll think, or God, I could really die. Someone could kill me, or worse, Annie, or Ruby, and that would be it.   
She wonders if it’s still worth it. In the beginning she did start to regain control and security. But now? Now she has none of those things, less so than what she had started with.   
It’s driving her crazy. He’s driving her crazy.   
She never really talks about it, not with anyone. It can come out with Annie and Ruby in the heat of the moment, but there is nothing that can be done or said by any of them.   
So she goes Rio, because that is a different story. Because he’s the cause of this all and he knows how to clean up his own messes. He always seems to know what to do or say, and so he is never afraid.  
“I can’t do this anymore.” She states with a shake of her head.   
“What’s that?”   
“The lying. I lie to my family. To my friends. To the FBI. To you.” He looks down at her; even leaning back, he is so much taller. “I can’t even keep it straight. And I can’t hide- not from you.” She takes a moment to gesture helplessly with her heavy arms. “And I can’t kill someone, either. So…” Beth trails off and waits for him to answer, but he’s still silent. He responds by standing up a little straighter and arching an eyebrow.   
He doesn’t believe her.   
She’s lying to him about how much she hates lying. She could almost laugh about it, except her face feels weighed down by months of chaos.  
She loves lying. It had come easy to her for as long as she can remember. She’s lucky she hadn’t become a pathological liar. It could have been in the cards for her, because when people easily fall into a web she weaves, she gets a rush of acute adrenaline and a hit of sublime satisfaction.   
She had lied to her family before.   
“Annie, mommy’s fine. She’s okay, just tired. We’ll be fine.” and “Mom, it’s okay. I can take care of us.”   
She had lied to her friends before, too.  
“Why isn’t your mom ever around, Beth?”  
“She’s just so busy. With work.” and “Yeah guys, Dean is so considerate, and it’s just… so hot when he.. just.. grabs my boobs…”   
(And yeah, maybe it bothers her a little more when it’s like this. Ruby isn’t just her friend. She’s her sister; she forgets that too often).  
Dean, she doesn’t feel bad about. It comes easy, because she had always had to cushion his fragile ego, or cushion her own views of him.   
“Are you ready for this?” She asked herself, face framed by an ivory veil, “Of course you are. You guys are meant to be,” and, referring to something he had been lying to her about, “Hey Bethie? Don’t worry. I got this.” So she plastered a confident smile to her face and shrugged easily— did her best to be reassuring.   
“I know.”   
(Lately, she’s been thinking that everything with Dean had been lies.)  
And law enforcement- well, she’d been there, done that.   
“No officer, of course I didn’t see my little sister stuff that mac and cheese down her shirt. She’s such a troublemaker.” and “Yes, Mrs. Smith, we’re absolutely being taken care of at home.”  
But then there’s Rio. Lying to him is actually challenging, and maybe that’s why she hates it so much.   
(And maybe it’s why she likes him so much.)  
“So who was it?”  
“You got your money.”  
“Yeah,” He pushed out a little laugh, because every time she challenges him, he treats it as a joke (until he doesn’t). “I’m also gonna need a name.”   
“I took care of it.” He didn’t believe her, even for a second. But whatever it was, she would be the one to regret it. Especially if it came back to him. But then, when he asked her to take care of one of their rotten eggs, she weaved a story full of sinister details. He only believes two of them; “I googled the cleanest way to kill somebody,” and “He cried like a baby.”  
“Man, that’s a hell of a story.” He said, and she couldn’t quite tell if he had bought it.   
“Thank you.” She pressed.   
“Yeah, I just wish it was true.”   
Like she had said, there’s no hiding from him.  
Fucking Rio, she’ll sometimes think, he’ll never touch anything in my life without making me question it, will he?   
It’s not fair, really. He takes all the fun out of lying because she doesn’t actually get away with it so she has to get away with something.   
He knows how to keep her coming back for more.   
There are so many reasons behind his inescapability. He has definitely never trusted her. He’s also a criminal mastermind; he might always know when someone is lying.   
But Beth cannot stop the small part of her that thinks that maybe he’s just had her figured out- just known her- from the beginning.   
She hates that part of her, and she hates that he’s a human lie detector, but she’s too weak to fight either of those things right now.   
Without her permission, she stops lying to him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for reading! I hope this chapter was okay, im worried i went off on too many tangents so let me know what u think.  
> my twitter is @iuciforbes so follow me there ya girl needs mutuals.  
> make sure to leave kudos if you enjoyed because i need that hit of dopamine to keep going.  
> one more chapter to go :)


	4. Confessions of the Goddess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's called "confessions of the goddess" instead of "confessions of the godless" because a. beth is a goddess and b. rio is sort of a god, isn't he? so who says beth is godless.   
> also that phrase is from a song called 8 ball god yall should listen it hits me hard

Truths fall from Beth’s lips and into Rio’s lap. He takes them like he takes everything; in stride. Like he doesn’t care either way, like it is no matter to him. 

“I am just so tired.” She begins. Her insecurities lay under similes about newborn babies and the repetition of how exhausted she is, but Rio sees right through it. 

She thinks that she can’t play this game and win.

(She can’t.)

He straightens out fully and pulls the gun from his pocket, moving forward and pressing it to her abdomen. She takes in a breath of anticipation. 

(At least, she can’t beat him.)

“Are you going to kill me?” Rio looks down at her, brow furrowed as he roves his eyes over her face. If she didn’t know better, she might think he himself didn’t know the answer to that. But no, that can’t be the case- this is a cold and calculated man who has no room for uncertainty. 

If there had been any weight in his trigger finger, it is gone in a blink’s time. He pushes her hair away from her face with his pinkie and she stares into the eyes of the man she thinks may be about to kill her. 

“I’m gonna teach you.” He promises, pushing her hair behind her ear. 

(But she can join him. She can stay in it, rule at his side.)

Beth feels  _ relieved.  _ Because he’s going to teach her- he’s going to help her. Suddenly her chest is a bit lighter because all the questions she hadn’t realized she needed answered are answered.

Rio wants her around. He believes she can be useful to him. Maybe he’s even a little fond of her. And she wonders, then, if she wanted to, could she turn around and walk away from this- from him?

All in the same moment, she knows the answer is no.  

She’s losing control, but she doesn’t care. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all done! i loved writing this one :)  
> let me know what u thought and feel free to send me any prompts on tumblr!! love u guys sm thank u for reading my shit.   
> ALSO HIS NAME IS NOT CHRISTOPHER I HATE IT  
> okay bye love u

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Thank you so much for reading! Please leave kudos and any thoughts you have! Sorry if this isn't well edited, I tried a new way this time.   
> Please check out my other fics if you liked this one!   
> Socials:  
> Twitter: iuciforbes  
> tumblr: forbesaken


End file.
